Corrupted External Hard Drives Attched to MacBook Pro

jimbridger · #1 May 17th, 2007, 10:44 AM

I've had four different occasions where my MacBook Pro has crashed and I've been unable to open the attached external hard drive. Thankfully it's still able to to be seen by a PC since it's FAT32

The question I'm looking for an answer to is this: If you have an external drive formatted for the Mac (Journaled) and the Mac crashes, could it still get corrupted? I'm hoping that by setting the disks up specifically for Mac that the problem will go away.

I've always been told that as long as there is no information being transferred between the computer and the drive that crashes, that the crash should not corrupt the drive. That seems to hold true for the Windows system since in 20 years I had plenty of crashes but no problems with corrupting my hard drive. I was told by a computer repair facility that Mac's can still corrupt the hard drive even if there is no information be transferred when the computer crashes. Is this true?

I'm currently using the MacBook Pro, OSX 10.4.9. any help is greatly appreciated.

**fryke** · #2 May 17th, 2007, 10:51 AM

If it's the _drive_ that crashes, I'd get it replaced. But I guess you mean the computer crashes?

Debaser626 · #3 May 17th, 2007, 10:54 AM

While Macs do see and access FAT32 drives, it's not a "perfect" union. They generally play better with the Mac journaled formatting, though I haven't really seen it to be an issue. And as far as I know all drives can be corrupted as long as they are mounted. When you suddenly remove a drive (i.e. computer crashes) you can damage the directory. Which is precisely why you should always eject a drive instead of just disconnecting the USB or Firewire cable. But, I must profess, I am unfamiliar with the Windows environment.

jimbridger · #4 May 17th, 2007, 11:10 AM

Debaser626,

Thanks for the info but there is no way I can eject the drive when the dang computer crashes on me and locks up before I can eject the drive. I realize that if I do all the proper steps that I'm safe. but.... the questions is will a drive get corrupted when it is formatted to Mac Journal if the computer crashes and I CAN"T eject the drive properly?

Decade · #5 May 17th, 2007, 03:16 PM

As long as the journalling software is written correctly, the crash shouldn't corrupt the drive. That's sort of the point of journalling filesystems.

In practice, I don't know. In Linux, where I have the most experience, IBM's Journaled Filesystem and Reiser's filesystem don't really protect against corruption, while Red Hat's EXT3 filesystem does.

jimbridger · #6 May 18th, 2007, 08:58 AM

Thanks everyone. I'm going to start formatting my drives for the Mac and hope all issues go away. I appreciate the feedback.

Kees Buijs · #7 May 18th, 2007, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbridger

Thanks everyone. I'm going to start formatting my drives for the Mac and hope all issues go away. I appreciate the feedback.

Sometimes the problem is information NOT writen to the disk which causes the drive to be corrupted (mainly directory contents).

Depending on the way the computer crashes (any system, any os), it can send information to a drive and trash it. But most problems will occur with instable systems (with e.g. bad memory) where the systems writes data to a disk, which is corrupted by the system (unintentionally).

Also keep backups disconnected as much as possible and even beter make them a e.g. dvd's etc. A good backup is only once in the system, when it is made, never to restore hopefully.

Good luck, Kees